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Erik Klemetti

Volcanologist, Denison University

I write the Eruptions blog on Big Think. I've been mesmerized with volcanoes (and geology) all my life. It helps that part of my family comes from the shadow of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia, where I could see first hand the deadly effects of volcanic eruptions. Since then, I've taken a bit of a winding path to become a volcanologist. I started as a history major at Williams College, almost went into radio, but ended up migrating to geology, including an undergraduate thesis on Vinalhaven Island, Maine. I followed this up by changing coast to get my Ph.D. from Oregon State University. Then I ran a MC-ICP-MS lab at University of Washington for a spell (and wrote for an indie rock website). I spent three years as a postdoctoral scholar at University of California - Davis studying the inner workings of magmatic systems. I am now an assistant professor at Denison University and have projects in New Zealand, Chile and Oregon.

I am fascinated by volcanoes, their eruptions and how those eruptions interact with the people who live around the volcanoes. I started this blog after getting frustrated with the news reports of volcanic eruptions. Most of them get the information wrong and/or are just sensationalistic. I will try to summarize eruptions as they occur, translate some of the volcanic processes that are happening and comment on the reports themselves.

And no matter what people tell you, I definitely do not have a cat named Tephra. (OK, I do).

You can find out more about my research by visiting my website. If you have any comments, questions or information, feel free to contact me at eruptionsblog at gmail dot com.

Quick update for late on Friday - much more to say on Monday. I promise. Really.
Anyway, some brief news:
Alaska: The dome is continuing to grow at Cleveland in Alaska - and we now have some images of the...

It's been over a month since the last MVP, so I thought it might be time to throw out another. Last time, Chris Reykjavik got the right answer - Kaula Island in Hawai`i (top left), a remnant of a tuff cone on a...

Well, I feel like a broken record, but I apologize for the dearth of posts. Amongst other things, I am mired in my third year review here, so I've been using up a lot of my non-teaching/research time in writing a...

Our somewhat quiet (beyond Etna's frequent paroxysms - and the cool lava "spine" that formed after the last one) volcanic fall continues. We have been following a lot of rumbling around the world - and we've seen...

It has been awhile since I've talked about the volcanoes of Colombia - they've had a fairly quiet year, but that doesn't mean that nothing is going on. If you head over to the Colombian Survey, INGEOMINAS, you can...

Quick update to catch us up a little on the week - and what better way to do that than to use the Smithsonian Institute/USGS Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report. Lots of good tidbits that we...

After a little (ahem) confusion this morning, we're back on track (for now). A few quick hits for a grey Ohio morning:
Iceland: The news from Katla hasn't changed much since I updated the post yesterday...

Well, Jon Frimann has been noticing this for the past week or so, but the increased seismicity at Iceland's Katla has finally begun to show up in the mainstream media. CBS had a report from the Associated Press...

Sorry about the paucity of new posts lately - there is a lot going on in the background here at Eruptions HQ, but all will be revealed in the next day or so.
Lots has been going on volcanically, so trying to...

Quick new post, but if you're hankering for another live feed, check out the Nautilus Live feed - with the option to watch a split screen of all sorts of data. The Hercules ROV is exploring the Kolombo...